The Love in Her Heart
by OutlawPrincess1
Summary: When Ben stumbles upon Mal with her mother's lizard container just after the coronation, a conversation follows about just what it means for Maleficent to have shrunk to the size of the love in her heart, and what that might say about the love she has for her daughter. Ben wants to do his best to make Mal feel as loved, wanted, and happy as her mother never did. Oneshot. Bal Fic.


Author's Note-Just a oneshot about a conversation that just wouldn't get out of my head between Mal and Ben about Maleficent and the love in her heart, how small it was and what that could mean.

Disclaimer: I do not own Descendants or the Isle of the Lost

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The Love in Her Heart

"Mal?" Ben called as he stepped out onto a small balcony of the castle, the sounds of the coronation party a distant sound so high up one of the towers.

He had been looking for her for a while now. Just after the fireworks had gone off Chad had wrangled him into a conversation and he'd lost track of Mal. Evie had been helpful in pointing him up to the tower where she was likely to be. Apparently Mal liked being as high up as she could be. It was something from her childhood, hearing tales of how her mother had turned into a dragon and flown, she always tried to get as high up as she could be, wanting to feel like she was touching the sky, flying.

Evie had been right, she was at the highest tower, the small glass that held her mother's lizard form resting on the ledge, Mal's hands placed on top of it as she looked up at the stars.

Mal didn't jump, not easily startled, but turned to look at him, "I'm sorry," she said quickly, "I just wanted to look…"

"It's fine," he smiled, moving to her side, "You can come here whenever you want," he glanced down at the party below, and up at the stars, then back to Mal, her gaze locked above once more, "Stargazing?"

"Yeah," she nodded slightly, "You can't really see the stars much from the Isle. You can't really see a lot at all. The sun, the clouds, the stars…" she trailed off, not wanting to talk about that, not with Ben, not knowing his father had been the one that had them all locked away there. It wasn't Ben's fault and she knew enough from how Queen Leah reacted to her than to bring up unpleasant things from the Isle around Ben.

The last thing she wanted was for him to feel responsible for their childhoods and what the Isle was like when it wasn't his fault.

"It's beautiful," she murmured instead.

"Yeah," Ben nodded, "It really is."

She glanced over at him, curious which stars he was looking at, only to see him looking at her, "Cheesy," she snarked lightly, though there was a faint blush on her cheeks at the grin he shot her in return.

"Maybe," he agreed, "But true."

"Extra cheesy then," she laughed.

The smile that had grown on her own face started to slip as she looked down at her hands, at the glass case that held her mother, the lizard seeming to be sleeping or perhaps she'd cursed herself into a sleeping spell.

She felt Ben's finger lightly trace under her chin before he turned her head to look up at him, "What is it?" he asked, staring so deeply into her eyes that she felt compelled to tell him.

"My mother is a lizard," she stated bluntly, Ben being silent, knowing there was more, "She's a very…small lizard. Fairy Godmother said that she shrank to the size of the love in her heart, and that's why she's so itty bitty," she looked back down at the glass case, at the little lizard in there, barely bigger than the size of her palm, "That's ALL the love she has in her heart."

Ben nodded slowly, keeping silent, not knowing what he could say to that, but wanting desperately to say more, especially when Mal's eyes filled with tears he knew she'd refuse to let fall. According to Jay she'd cried more than she ever had in her life since she'd gotten to Auradon, she wouldn't want to cry any more.

"And the sad thing is," Mal let out a small huff, "It's not even the love she has for me."

"Mal…" he began, shaking his head, wanting so desperately to deny that, to deny that Maleficent had such little love for her daughter.

"She has no love for me Ben," Mal turned to look at him, cutting him off, "She has love, yeah. For revenge, for power, for magic, for freedom, for every dark and evil dead she could do…but…nothing for me."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"I used to think that," Mal admitted quietly, "I used to think that she loved me in her own way."

That had been before she'd come there, seen what true and real parents were like to their children, how they treated them, how they loved them in all the big and small ways a parent could.

It had been before her mother had turned into a dragon and tried to kill not just her friends but her as well.

It was before her mother had blatantly told her that love was weak and ridiculous.

Which meant even the love she should have felt for her daughter.

"But I was wrong," Mal finished, closing her eyes tightly and taking a sharp breath, willing herself not to cry. She had gone 16 years without shedding a single tear, she was NOT going to turn into some weepy princess now.

Her two prior moments of weakness aside, she was not going to strike out a third time.

"She doesn't love me," Mal opened her eyes, "I don't think she ever did. And it just…it makes me wonder why she kept me," she looked at Ben, "If she knew she didn't want me, if she knew she couldn't, wouldn't, love me, she shouldn't have kept me. All I am to her, Ben, is a reminder of how she was weak once, that's all she sees when she looks at me, a reminder of her own weakness. And that won't ever change. She doesn't love me, she never did, not the way a mother should love her daughter. Not even the way a master would love their minion. I was a means to an end and that's all I am to her."

Ben was quiet for a long while, looking at Mal closely, "Mal…do you have any happy memories from the Isle?"

Mal swallowed hard at that, not sure why he was asking, why he would ask that after she'd just told him something that deep, something she'd never told anyone else, "A few," she answered.

"None with your mother though," he guessed, "Most with Evie, Carlos, and Jay?"

She nodded, "Yeah."

He smiled softly at that, confusing her more, but lifted his hand to touch her cheek, "I want you to know Mal, that…that I DO love you," he said it. No past tense, no love potion, but what he genuinely felt for her, his REAL feelings, "And I promise you that…for how unhappy you were, how unwanted you thought you were, and how unloved you felt…I am going to make you feel that happy, that wanted, and that loved, times 10."

Mal let out a shuddering breath at his promise, because she could see it in his eyes. Ben lacked any ability to lie at all, she realized it after she'd learned he knew of the potion, that he'd kept her as his girlfriend even as the love potion wore off. She had assumed he was still under it and he just hadn't corrected her, but he hadn't lied to her. She doubted he even could, not with parents like his. In his eyes she could see the truth shining through, no lie at all.

He really intended to do that, he really was promising that, he…he really WANTED to do that.

For her.

"And you think you can do it?" she felt herself starting to tease, trying to keep a smile off her face at how touched she was by his words, that someone would actually CARE about her that much.

"I'm going to try," he nodded.

"You're going to have some pretty high standards," she remarked, "You really don't know what it was like on the Isle for us, for me."

"Then tell me," he reached out to take her other hand, his thumb still on her cheek stroking it, "When you're ready to, I'll always be here to listen. And I'll always be here for you, Mal," he lifted her other hand and pressed a kiss to it, "And I stand by my promise, I just want you to be happy, to feel loved."

She blinked rapidly, holding back the tears that had turned into happy ones, "Well," she cleared her throat lightly, "I know the best way to start that."

"How?"

Mal just smiled and leaned in.

Ben took the hint without a second thought, leaning in as well to meet her lips in their very first kiss.

And if the electricity that flowed between them at the contact, the warmth that spread through the two of them the moment their lips touched, was anything to go by…

Ben was going to make her very, very happy, wanted, and loved.

Times 100.

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Author's Note-Hope you liked that. The second that the Fairy Godmother remarked that the reason Maleficent was so small was because that was all the love she had in her heart, taking into consideration it was in scale of her dragon-self, that was such a SMALL amount and with how she treated Mal (from my interpretation of the movie) it didn't seem likely that the small love she still had in her was all for her daughter, but other things with maybe a speck for her.

The bit about Mal feeling like she represents a moment of weakness her mother had was, from what I've gathered of the Isle of the Lost without reading it, taken from the fact that Maleficent didn't seem all that warm to the thought of Mal's father and, from my understanding of what I read, seemed to almost regret being with the man at all. Which I feel like she'd put on Mal for being the product of that union. Even if that's completely wrong, Mal could still be argued to be a weakness for Maleficent, being her daughter. If she even had a speck of love for the girl she could be used against her by her enemies or something like that.


End file.
